sixthiterationlogs | I work hard, I work hard every day

WHO: (Who is making the post)
WHERE: Inn & House 63
WHEN: September 4/5
OPEN TO: Kat, Constantine
WARNINGS: Discussion of time travel, swearing, tobacco use?

Inn

Now that walking isn't half so much a bitch and he's got a fair amount of work in his back pocket (figuratively) and hand (literally), Tony's better able to get a solid assessment of how much shit he can manage in a day. Which isn't near as much as he'd like but more than he probably should considering the whole 'healing up' thing he should be doing. But. He's got a meeting, supplies for what should prove to be an interesting interview, and a desperate need for anything coffee adjacent. He sets up at a far table, laying out the micro tools he'd managed to form the night before, the clock, and a sketch of what he hopes to make.

House 63

At least this time he's not hauling anything bigger than a lighter. Tony makes his way to Constantine's house with a notebook, a spool of twine, and something close to hope. Maybe. Workshopping timetravel isn't something that should be done he knows rationally but-

He has questions. It can't do any harm to ask, right? Right.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

That gets a shadowy not-quite smile. There's always good news in magic, but it always comes with a cost.

"An action that widespread will take an equally devastating move to reverse. But because it was magical in nature, it is reversible." He levels Tony with a rare sober gaze, imploring him to understand this next part. "Magic always comes with a price, Mechanic. You have to be prepared to pay the toll."

"Tony." If they're talking end of the world and devastating consequences. "Half the universe is gone. Because we couldn't keep it from happening. If there's any kind of cost to fix it that's less than half the universe getting wiped out? Any cost at all? I'm more than prepared."

His life, his legacy- the lives of all the avengers- doesn't matter. Nothing he can think of is worth keeping around at the cost of half the fucking universe.

"You will only get one chance to make it right. If you hesitate, it won't be undone."

He speaks with certainty though he doesn't know this man or his universe. He doesn't know about Thanos or the gauntlet in any specific way, but he knows a fair few things about magic. They're (nearly) universal, the rules he's sketching out for Tony now.

"Unfortunately, nothing can be done from here. This is an in-between place. Limbo."

He's never been the one that lacked conviction. Not once. A bone deep certainty that a thing needed to be done- he's always had that. Whether or not it aligned with what the rest of them thought would be best; that might've been the biggest problem.

But they had their shot. They all failed. His way hadn't worked. Their way hadn't worked.

Not many options left to them back home but anything is better than sitting and waiting. Anything.

"The wizard that had the amulet- he put it in play. I figure time travel has to be part of how we fix it. He said it was the only way we'd win. Fourteen million variations on the future- and only one route where we win." Those aren't odds he loves- those aren't even odds he can comfortably fathom. "So if all we can work on here is theory- that's fine. Call it payment for the lighter."

"Time theory," he echoes a bit dully, mulling that over. "Time is... fickle. If this wizard held the talisman then he must have mastered it to some degree, correct? I'll admit it isn't my usual arena."

But he knows people - things that operate between time itself. It isn't a completely foreign concept by any means, it's only something he's never had much success in personally. If he could go back, bring back his mother? Reverse Astra's damnation and his own? Of course, he would. But the cost would be too high, it would plunge his world into darkness. He wouldn't risk it, not when it was already rising on its own.

"What do you know about the other talismans?"

"Singularities. Infinity Stones." He'd gotten a whole lecture right about when everything started going to hell in earnest. "I've got more experience with some than others- Space, Power, Time, Reality, Mind and Soul in all the colors of the fucked up rainbow. The Space stone- Tesseract- knocked around on earth for a few centuries in hiding before getting picked up by Nazi's to power their weapons and research. My father picked it up after World War 2 and studied it pretty extensively, discovered an element that was similar? The Mind stone's...like a sentient computer without a personality. Artificial Intelligence that's nigh human but completely without human rationality, empathy, reasoning. Trying to work with it sort of fucked things up a bit and then sort of fixed things."

Ultron, Vision. Two ends of a very different scale.

"The Power stone was- I don't know, I don't think it ever made it to earth but essentially it'd be the battery in the overall equation. The Reality stone popped up in London for a little bit courtesy of Asgardian Political Drama before being hidden somewhere not in our solar system but that didn't take, clearly. Dr. Strange had the time stone which was protected by Wizards for...god knows how long. The Soul stone- all I know about that is it cost Thanos his daughter to get it." Ruined the whole damn plan, Quill losing his shit.

Singularities. Right.

"Powerful items like you describe, they have no morality on their own. It is up to their user to abide by natural law, and if they don't..." Half the world is wished away. His mind's in overdrive, Tony's the genius perhaps he only needs a sounding board. But that lighter is a weighted stone in his pocket, he feels like he owes this man something. Anything he can give. "Did you say his daughter?"

He just needs... a minute, okay? That was a lot of information. And he still doesn't know how he's gonna get Tony out of here so he can have a rematch with that guy. Or, especially, why he cares about that.

"Estranged but he sounded pretty beat up- I think..." He closes his eyes to go back over the fight, that moment when they were so close to success. "He said 'I had to'. I'm assuming the cost for the soul stone was her life. Which- more or less cements the fact that he was a zealot. I hate dealing with zealots."

Bone deep conviction in what you're doing? Makes for powerful delusion. Makes for something you can't rationalize with or fight back.

"The time stone's in play. Time travel has to be the answer, Strange told me we were in the endgame right after he ponied up the space stone. And right after everyone began crumbling to dust he said it was the only way." And then he too crumbled into dust.

I work hard, I work hard every day

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